The Hippocampus and Thalamus Work Together to Regulate Dopamine Neuron Activity
Material below summarizes the article Convergent Inputs from the Hippocampus and Thalamus to the Nucleus Accumbens Regulate Dopamine Neuron Activity, published on December 12, 2018, in JNeurosci and authored by Stephanie M. Perez and Daniel J. Lodge.
One of the main types of symptoms experienced by people with schizophrenia are positive symptoms, which include hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. This psychosis is thought to be mediated by aberrant dopamine signaling, but the cause of this aberrant signaling has not been conclusively demonstrated.
We previously investigated the afferent regulation of the dopamine system and identified a glutamatergic pathway from the ventral hippocampus to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) crucial to the regulation of dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Given that individuals with schizophrenia exhibit hyperactivity in hippocampal subfields that is correlated with the severity of positive symptoms, it is likely the dopamine dysfunction in schizophrenia is driven by aberrant ventral hippocampal activity.
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